Silophant wrote:As much as I'm against tearing down a century-old house for surface parking, it would be nice for the entrance to the expanded lot to move to 13th and off of 4th. Hopefully that's a condition of the demo permit. Or does the permission he got for the Graduate still apply?

The demo permits for 1315 4th and the old house on 13th Ave were approved. They were not in any way tied to building of the hotel. The hotel would have gone through a totally separate planning process with its own public hearing. Same goes for the 2320 Colfax development...the apartment building hasn't actually been approved yet, even though the fight over demolition is over (or nearly over, pending the lawsuit).

Which curb cut on 4th are you wanting to be closed? The one for the bank(?) drive through (1315)? Or the one between 1319 and Tony's Diner?

I'd like to see the bank drive-through reclosed. Until last summer, the parking lot was run as a part of the bigger one displaced by the Venue, and access was off of 5th. I'd like to see that be the case again.

Doesn't look like there's anything on the schedule, either for the Planning Commission or their CoW.

Theater Garage Marquee is on the PC CoW (City Planning Commission of the Whole, basically a pre-meeting meeting where the commission members discuss the business that will be before them, the public can attend but they can't testify). http://www.minneapolismn.gov/meetings/p ... S1P-127101

Up to 18 floors now? Wow, that's shockingly bold considering the 6-story proposal by Doran was shot down so vigorously, but apparently the reasoning is sound and with 40-foot setbacks a slim 18-story tower would impact the street LESS than a 6-story behemoth that has no setback! They also propose to keep the existing buildings intact, which I always love (i.e. adaptive reuse).

Realistically though, will it probably be dropped down to something like 12 floors? It seems that many of the taller proposals in the city that are over 12 floors high, later turn out to be a few floors shorter than originally planned due to things like overall construction costs, controversy over height, etc.

Maybe that's their M.O., and rightfully so, considering that no matter what the proposed height is it seems that the City of a neighborhood group will try to knock it down, so why not get ahead of the game and inflate the height purposely just to be knocked back down to a height closer to what they originally hoped for?

Even that I wouldn't have a problem with. I just don't want to see Dinkytown become entirely 6-story buildings (except for the Château, of course). Height variation is good.

Predictions for this proposal:
#1: The Daily reporter was confused, and this project will actually tear down the yellow bank building and possibly the house, just sparing the Mesa building.

#2 That street-facing transformer that everyone hated will be back, and probably bigger.

#3 The resistance from Save Dinkytown will be truly mind-boggling, despite this project saving at least 3 "historic" storefronts compared to The Graduate, and despite a hotel making it more nearly certain that the actual historic part of Dinkytown will survive.